Gardening Tips for Tall Trees
by Ophium
Summary: Dean dies again. Coda of sorts to 'Two minutes to midnight'. Spoilers for the season finale, mild as they are. Warnings for a couple of swear words. Unbeta-ed. Complete.


Gardening Tips for Tall Trees

Dean stumbled out of the pizza place like a man out of a long sleep. The faint acrid taste of melted cheese still coated his taste buds, the air crispy and still smelling of ozone and rain.

The storm was over though.

Chicago, without a clue about how close it had come of turning into nothing but a blip in existence, went on with its busy city life as usual.

It felt almost anticlimactic. All painfully banal and ordinary.

People yelling out for cabs, the train up above roaring through the rails, shrill horns blaring to anyone who was listening. The rush of cars driving by, going only slightly faster than the people who were delayed by the previous biblical bad weather, all trying to make up for the lost time; the wet streets, that should smell cleaner now that rivers of rain have literally flooded them, but where the pouring water served for nothing more than to drench the trash and filth on the ground and making it float like chunks of celery on soup.

Dean barely saw any of that, mind still trapped in the bizarre conversation he'd just had with Death.

With _Death_.

The Horseman had just handed over his ring to Dean, extracting a promise of standing by and watch as Sam threw himself into eternal damnation. If it weren't for the churning feeling at the tip of his stomach whenever Dean thought about the matter, he would've laugh at Death's naiveté.

If there was one promise that no one could expect Dean Winchester to keep was one that involved his brother and dying.

But then again... given the givens, Dean wondered who was the naïve one in this whole matter.

It was just a ring, really. More symbolic than practical. It wasn't like Death had gone out of business because the thing was off his bony finger.

Which explained why, when crossing the busy street with speeding cars, on the wet road, with his mind clouded by dark thoughts, Dean died instantly when the silver pickup truck hit him dead on.

OlolololololololololO

This time around, all Dean needs is one good look around and he instantly knows where he is. The green is luxurious, moist with morning dew that seems eternal in that place. Sunlight sneaks from in between the higher leaves and tree branches, piercing the ground like spears of white dust. He was there before, in the place where these trees and plants were real. He was here before too, in this made-up version of a happy time on Earth.

Heaven. Again.

"This is becoming quite the trend," a soft, male voice calls out from behind a flourishing shrub with yellow and orange flowers to Dean's left.

Dean remembers the voice, the particular cadence that reminds him of Missouri, not only because the owner of the voice shares the same skin color as the psychic but because he too has that strange ability of using the sweetest tones to deliver the harshest words.

He finds Joshua crouching on the ground, hands fumbling with wet dirt, sorting through the soil under a bed of white roses.

"No road," Dean realizes as he says the words. There was a road before, one he had to walk before reaching this same place, the heart of Paradise. "VIP treatment?"

The dark skinned man looks up, squinting at the sunlight that Dean knows to be just an imitation of the real thing. It feels real enough, though, warming the skin at the back of his neck when Dean looks down at Joshua.

"You kill an angel and deny Michael," Joshua points out, "and you expect Michael to easily allow you entrance in Heaven?"

Dean blinks, not quit sure where the gardener is going with that. "He's holding a grudge?"

The dark skinned man smiles. "If Michael were to set hands on your soul at this point in time, he would likely peel the skin from your flesh and dip you in a tank filled with angry sharks," Joshua says in a matter of fact way. "So, yes, I would say he is holding a 'grudge'."

Dean dry swallows. He can't help it. There are two places he knows a soul can go to after death, and if the current big boss in one of them is that pissed at him… there is only one place Dean can go. "Then why am I here?"

"Michael is… distracted for the time being. Bigger things. Important things. Thought I might save you the trouble," Joshua says with a shrug. "There isn't much time left, you know?"

Dean really doesn't want to think about 'what' exactly Michael might be busy with right then. The image of Adam, plucked out from his eternal rest, trapped in that room while the archangel descended on him was one that was constantly behind Dean's eyelids whenever he closed his eyes. One more brother he had failed.

"I thought time didn't matter up here," Dean ends up saying, because when all the remaining topics are emotional minefields, he's always good with sticking with the weather… or whatever else.

Joshua pats down the earth, nesting the freshly planted flowers. "Time always matters, even if its matters are different here and there. Nothing evolves if times stands still."

"You're sending me back?"

The look that the older man gives him is filled with compassion and understanding and Dean finds himself recoiling from it. Like before, when Joshua saw through and exposed his most hidden feelings, Dean knows that the man can read his soul like an open book. And what's written there now Dean wants no one looking at.

The doubts, the fear, the sheer unwillingness to go through with what he knows he needs to do. He wants none of that, and he wants even less to hear someone else voice his fears.

"Do you want to go back?"

The question surprises Dean. "What?" He stutters.

"It's a simple question, Dean" Joshua says patiently as he rises to his feet, dusting his hands on the blue coveralls that he's wearing.

The hands leave a dark trail on the denim and Dean finds himself wondering about the existence of dry cleaners in Heaven.

The 'simple question', as Joshua refers to it, isn't simple at all. And Dean hates the fact that he has, apparently, a choice. Hates even more the fact that it's a choice he welcomes.

To go back or to stay.

Dean isn't stupid. And he has long stop believing in the benefits of denial or sticking your head in the sand. As much as he hates Sam's plan to trap the devil inside his body and force him to jump back into the cage, Dean is well aware that there is no other choice. He could protest against it until he was blue in the face, but deep down, Dean knows that at some point in his near future, he'll have no other choice but stand by and watch Sam die.

The thought alone is enough to turn his stomach and set his heart racing. It's the same as asking him to rip his own lungs out and keep on breathing.

To go back… he would be going back to that.

Or he could stay here. Maybe pay Pamela that visit that he'd promised, lose himself in a little bliss and forget about the rest, about the things he can't change and are ultimately out of his hands.

Stick around and try to piss Michael a bit more by disobeying his standing orders, wear out his patience until the archangel and the rest of his pals started running around like headless chickens.

Dean is being offered a chance to be selfish for once in his life. The fact that it's God's personal gardener offering that to him strokes Dean as too ironic.

"You're smiling," Joshua points out, as if afraid that Dean would miss the fact otherwise.

"I was thinking about Michael's face when he finds out that you brought me here anyway."

Joshua moves on to another tree, shearing scissors in his callous hands. "Michael does not command Heaven, only Heaven's armies," he says, carefully picking a branch to cut. "And I… am not a soldier."

Dean runs a hand through his hair, wonders where his body is at right now. Last time this happened and he was allowed to remember, he and Sam had been 'safe' in a motel room. Shot dead, but safe.

The last thing Dean remembers this time around was the sharp pain of feeling his body being broken in two, flying through the air and knowing that, when he landed, it was going to hurt like hell.

"What happens if I stay?" He finds himself asking, feeling disgusted at the relief that fills his chest at the idea of not going back.

"I could use another set of hands," Joshua promptly says. "The southern edge needs to be plucked of weeds and I can never find the time to properly po—"

"You know what I mean," Dean cuts him short. "Will Sam… can Lucifer be locked again? Can Sam stop him?"

The sharp click of the shears closing around the thin branch echoed across the garden, abrupt and final. "No, he can't."

Dean gulps. "But…" '_he's all we've got'_ Dean finds himself thinking. Even with the rings, even with the knowledge of how to lock Lucifer back into his cage, they have no way of forcing the devil to jump, no way to trick him. Just Sam.

Unless Dean gives up on saving half the planet, swallows his pride and just… "Can I?"

Another sharp cut, the leaves cracking as they hit the ground. "No."

"No? NO?" Dean explodes, feeling faintly guilty when a group of birds takes flight in a hurry after his angry shout. "Then, what? Lucifer wins? Is that it? Is that why you offered me to stay here, because there is nothing more we can do down there?"

"Have you ever planted anything, Dean?"

Dean can barely hear the question over his own harsh breathing. "Wha... what?"

"A tree, a plant, a flower… anything that requires putting a seed in the earth?"

Completely lost on why that has anything to do with the impending apocalypse, Dean can do little more than open and close his mouth like a fish out of water. "I…," he stutters, trying to come up with an answer only because he's curious himself. "A bean, once… for school. In a cup," Dean recalls. Science class, eighth grade, he figures. They never stuck around long enough for him to know if that bean grew into anything else.

"Everything planted behaves in the exact same way. It needs earth, water and sun. And while Nature can provide for all of those and make sure that every seed grows into another tree, another weed, another flower, it's the ones that we plant with our own hands that we treasure the most. Do you know why?"

Dean just shrugs. He has other things on his mind, more important things than roses and potatoes. His heart is racing with thoughts of Sam sacrificing himself and still failing. He can't let that happen. He needs to go back now and stop Sam from doing something foolish.

"Love and tending," Joshua says. It takes a couple of seconds for Dean to realize that the man is answering the question that Dean ignored.

"Love?"

Joshua smiles as he hands Dean the pruning shears that he'd been using on the tree. "Love and tending… is what turns a wild tree into a source of food, it's what makes the difference between a bitter fruit and a sweet one. The tree grows fine without our help, but Dean... it grows stronger with it."

Dean grasps the long scissors, smudges of green covering the blades. He never planted a tree, not even a small plant, but Dean thinks he knows what Joshua is talking about. "And in the end?" He can't stop himself from asking.

Because Dean knows how strong Sam is, how determined he is to see this through and stop Lucifer, but Dean will not stand by and watch Sam kill himself is he knows that it won't make a difference. That Lucifer will still win.

He remembers the future all too well. That is a version of Sam that he wishes he will never see again.

"In the end, Dean, it's a matter of faith," Joshua says, pointing at the tree he'd been pruning. The inner branches, now free from the weight of the heavier, older ones, seem to reach out towards the sun light, greener and eager to thrive. "The tree will thank you for the light of the sun just the same as you will thank it for its shade."

OlolololololololololO

Dean comes to in the backseat of his own car, large gulp of air filling his lungs with familiar scents of leather and sweat.

"Oh, thank the fuck!" Crowley's voice explodes from the front seat. "I thought I had to deliver your stinking carcass to your sodding brother and be force to deal with his Neanderthal overreaction while the whole damn world ended around us!"

The scenery is blurring past the side window, nothing but smudges of green and brown until the car starts slowing down and Dean can see enough to recognize the old box factory near Bobby's. Sliding up while the demon parks the Impala, Dean looks down at himself, noticing for the first time the fading bruise in his lower belly and the fact that he is wearing nothing but a white sheet.

For a second, what strikes him as oddest is the fact that the gardening shears he was holding are no longer in his hands.

"What the hell happened? And where the hell are my clothes?"

Crowley turns, eyes squinting in between amusement at the way in which Dean clenches the sheet on his lap, and pure annoyance at the situation.

"How hard can it be to grasp the concept of looking both ways before crossing the street?... you idiot!" The demon says, voice growing in volume and shrieking level as he goes. "The clothes are in the back… and you can thank me later for the bloody sheet, because BODIES AT THE FUCKING MORGUE DON'T GET THAT COURTESY, DO THEY?"

Dean blinks, slightly entertained by the fact that, the more Crowley's voice rises, the more he sounds like a grumpy old lady, a fact that he keeps to himself. "I was in the morgue?" Dean asks instead. As an after thought, he gazes down to his big toe. Sure enough, there is a white tag hanging from it. "Oh."

"Oh… Oh, he says, like it's bloody surprising to end up in the morgue after flying ten meters straight up," Crowley goes on. "Now get yourself up here… I hate driving on the right-hand of the road… the car's not bad though," he adds, finally settling in a more quiet conversation. "Say… if you don't happen to survive this whole thing… do you mind if I—"

"Get out of here, Crowley," Dean hisses. He's kind of thankful that the demon went to the trouble of springing him out of the morgue to take him back to Sam and Bobby, apparently. He has no idea why the demon would do such a thing, but it strikes him as nice. Could he possibly know that Dean would be sent back? "How did ya—"

The demon stops him with a raised hand. "Please… I've got my connections," he says with a smile that implies those connections go as far high as they go below. "Send my regards to Bobby, will you?" he adds with a mischievous wink before vanishing.

Dean tries not to think too much about the… dealings between the flamboyant demon and Bobby. He's got a vicious headache as it is.

Joshua's words ring like church bells inside his head and Dean hurries out of the car to retrieve his clothes. Death's rings falls out of the pocket of his jeans and Dean picks it up.

The keys are all in their hands and the devil is waiting for their next move.

It's time Dean trusts the tall tree he helped to grow and allows Sam to reach out for the sun.

The end


End file.
